Mexican Wedding Cookies: Boom Boom Pow(der)

Feeling like a pow(d)er puff girl because this recipe left me covered in powdered sugar!

Bad puns aside, Mexican wedding cookies are totally worth the mess. Plus, this recipe is super straightforward and requires only a few ingredients. If I haven’t convinced you to make this bake yet, then keep on reading for the mouth-watering description.

What to Expect:

Mexican wedding cookies provide a doughy, powdery texture with a punch of walnuts that melts in your mouth. If you’re as impatient as I am, then this bake is for you; I made them in under an hour. So if you’re in need of a quick wintery treat, these snowball dopplegangers are the perfect solution.

After baking the dough for the full 12 minutes (when they started looking golden), I was very skeptical that the powdered sugar would actually stick to the outside. But I assure you it will. I recommend waiting 10 or 15 minutes before coating the cookies with sugar. At least in my experience, I discovered that the cooler the cookies were, the better the sugar stuck.

What I Changed:

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I halved the recipe, which usually yields 36 Mexican wedding cookies. (I need to pace myself, ya feel?) Trust me, even half of a batch is enough to be thankful for! Although I’ve run into some problems when I tinker with the original quantity of some recipes, I had no issues with this bake.

I also chose to use chopped walnuts, but almonds or pecans will work too. Or maybe a mix of them. Go nuts!

Original Recipe from Food.com:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1⁄2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1⁄4 cups sifted flour
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 3⁄4 cup chopped walnuts or 3/4 cup pecans
• powdered sugar (for rolling baked cookies in)

DIRECTIONS

1. Cream together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy; stir in vanilla.
2. Whisk together flour and salt; add gradually to butter mixture; stir in chopped nuts.
3. Chill dough if it seems too soft.
4. Form dough into 1 1/4" balls and place onto parchment-lined or ungreased baking sheets.
5. Bake at 400° for 10-12 minutes or just until the cookies start to turn light golden-brown; remove from oven and allow to cool slightly; while cookies are still warm (but NOT hot) remove them from baking sheets and roll, a few at a time, in powdered sugar until evenly coated; cool cookies completely on wire racks.
6. Cookies may (optionally) be rolled in powdered sugar a second time once cooled to room temperature.